Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

[goodpsusearch]

I received this hdd and the customer said that it does nothing when powered on and asked me if I could save his data.

It is a seagate freeagent desk (identical to this: http://www.thinkcomputers.org/review...ent_desk/9.jpg). When I connected it to power it just made the sound that means that the drive tries unsuccessfully to spin up.

I opened up the external case and took the hdd out. I don't know how I did it, but when I connected it again to the freeagent desk case and powered it, it spun without a problem. Then it started clicking in a high rate for 1-2 minutes, then it continued clicking but the clicking rate lowered. The hdd was recognized successfully and I was able to copy all the data from it to the customer's new hdd.

He doesn't want to risk his data, so the drive is mine now. The reason I opened that thread is to ask if it is possible the drive could be repaired somehow. The fact that there was no data loss and that after an hour of operation it stops clicking and works like a normal hdd means that the damage made from the fall is not irreversible.

Do you have any similar experience with resurrected hard drives?

[diif]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

Have you run the Seagate diagnostic software on the drive removed from the case ?

[cheapie]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

It sounds like something got knocked out of alignment, and it gradually "learned" the new positions.

[momaka]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

It sounds like something got knocked out of alignment, and it gradually "learned" the new positions.

I doubt it. HDD heads are aligned very precisely. Once they get out of alignment, the HDD won't boot and can't "learn" the new positions. If it boots again, it's probably because somehow the heads god aligned again externally.

It is possible, after all, that the moving of the hard drive cause its heads to become properly aligned again.

Or, since you say the HDD failed to spin up when you got it, I would guess that most likely the HDD heads got stuck to the platter somehow and moving it unlocked them. The clicking you heard after that was the HDD likely marking out the areas on the platters that got damaged when the head(s) got stuck on it/them. Read the SMART data and check the Reallocated Sector Count, Reallocated Event Count, Current Pending Sector Count, and Write Error Rate and post what values you got on them.

I had a Fujitsu HDD that got stuck heads when I got it. I opened the HDD and unstuck it. Unfortunately, I did this in a not so clean environment and with a not so clean tool, so the platter got a little dirty in the process. The HDD worked for about 2 hours until I decided to perform a benchmark on it. While it was working, I had no problem reading from and writing to the HDD without getting any corruption. I also have a Seagate HDD that was dropped quite severely. It didn't want to do a normal format, but a quick format worked just fine. That one has over 1600 bad sectors on it - I'm guessing bad sectors due to the drop. The bad sector count has no increased since then, although I never did any benchmarks on the HDD either. I just started using it and there hasn't been any data corruption so far.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

Unfortunately every time the HDD is spinning it does the same routine I described above. After some time of use it tends to stop clicking/making sounds and then works like a normal HDD.

The saddest think is that some bad sectors appeared in the end of the HDD (checked the drive many times with HDD Regenerator) and now I formatted a partition starting from start of the disk and stopping at 320GB approximately. That partition has no bad sectors and now the HDD is back on the external enclosure and will be used for monthly back up of all my files. It can't be used in any other more frequent or critical way.

[kc8adu]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

did i just read what i thought i did?
going to use a DROPPED PROBLEMATIC DRIVE FOR BACKUPS?
that one would get scrapped here!

Unfortunately every time the HDD is spinning it does the same routine I described above. After some time of use it tends to stop clicking/making sounds and then works like a normal HDD.

The saddest think is that some bad sectors appeared in the end of the HDD (checked the drive many times with HDD Regenerator) and now I formatted a partition starting from start of the disk and stopping at 320GB approximately. That partition has no bad sectors and now the HDD is back on the external enclosure and will be used for monthly back up of all my files. It can't be used in any other more frequent or critical way.

[ratdude747]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

did i just read what i thought i did?
going to use a DROPPED PROBLEMATIC DRIVE FOR BACKUPS?
that one would get scrapped here!

Agreed. One's backup should be their most reliable, not their least.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

It would be one more back up of data that I already have backup-ed in reliable working drives.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

I made the mistake once of trusting a questionable drive as a secondary backup. I'm glad it isn't your only backup but I wouldn't use it. Shit happens and it only takes one turd to make a stink.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

Back in 2004 I had an IBM 80GB Deskstar that started making some strange sounds. I ordered a new 200GB Maxtor hard drive and cloned the old hard drive to the new one. 2 months later suddenly the Maxtor died.. I was able to get all my data from the IBM and recovered several files from the Maxtor, files created the last 2 months that I have been using the Maxtor.

The "unreliable" Deathstar works till today ironically. If I scrapped / tossed it I would irreversibly lose most of my data..

[Doom2pro]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

I have a Western Digital 160GB drive that would head dock repeatedly on spin up and sometimes it would detect the drive others not, and if it did detect the drive it would have read errors. I thought the drive had packed it in physically, but noticed that if the drive was given a solid whack it would stop clicking and work properly for a short time (few minutes)... This got me to unscrew the drive's PCB and when I flipped it over I noticed scorched/corroded pad contacts on the PCB that contact the array of pins on the drive chassis, and when I cleaned and polished these the drive started working perfectly again and still does.

If a drive is failing or failed, try cleaning the board and even give it a re-flow with a hot air gun, you never know, it might do the trick.

[momaka]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

Back in 2004 I had an IBM 80GB Deskstar that started making some strange sounds. I ordered a new 200GB Maxtor hard drive and cloned the old hard drive to the new one. 2 months later suddenly the Maxtor died.. I was able to get all my data from the IBM and recovered several files from the Maxtor, files created the last 2 months that I have been using the Maxtor.

The "unreliable" Deathstar works till today ironically. If I scrapped / tossed it I would irreversibly lose most of my data..

Nice!
I find it quite funny that many of these "unreliable" Deathstars are still a million times more reliable than all of the modern Toshiba 2.5" HDDs I've seen.

And like you said, a backup of a backup on an unreliable drive is still better than only a single backup. I use a known bad 500 GB Seagate HDD as a secondary backup of my large files. I had to split it into 3 partitions to make it "stable". In one of the partitions, there are many "invisible" bad sectors - i.e. sectors that the HDD could write to/read from and not mark as bad but regularly give me back corrupt data once I try to read from them.

[Dan81]

Re: Hard drive dropped. Now works but "seek error rate" value skyrocketed

Back in 2004 I had an IBM 80GB Deskstar that started making some strange sounds. I ordered a new 200GB Maxtor hard drive and cloned the old hard drive to the new one. 2 months later suddenly the Maxtor died.. I was able to get all my data from the IBM and recovered several files from the Maxtor, files created the last 2 months that I have been using the Maxtor.

The "unreliable" Deathstar works till today ironically. If I scrapped / tossed it I would irreversibly lose most of my data..

Seems you were lucky
I had 3 drives die from 3 different manufacturers until now:

1.IBM Deskstar DTLA-307015 13GB - this one died a slow death,but mainly because I took of the stickers on it.I still remember that after I took out the stickers it sounded like a plane

2.Samsung SP1603 160GB (IDE) - this one suddenly died without notice.I had it mounted on a Pentium II BX system running XP,and it suddenly started clicking.

3.Maxtor 6E040L0 40GB - another slow death,first it locked itself and I couldn't use it,and then it started clicking.

Since then I've tossed them in boxes with broken parts,and went for Seagate and WDC drives.My 10GB backup drive for the second system is a Seagate ST310211A (pulled from a Xbox)and the main drive for that system is a SATA WDC WD800JD 80GB drive.However,my main rig still uses a Samsung HD103SI HDD pulled from a external HDD enclosure.